Making memories: The gestural misinformation effect in children aged 11-16-years-old with intellectual/developmental difficulties.
Students with moderate IDD copy misleading hand gestures just as easily as typical kids, so control your own motions during interviews.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Greenlee et al. (2024) watched 21 students with moderate intellectual disability answer questions.
The interviewer moved her hands while she spoke.
Some gestures hinted at wrong facts.
Kids were 11-16 years old and sat in their own classroom.
What they found
Eighteen of the 21 students repeated the wrong facts the hands suggested.
Their error rate matched that of typically developing kids in past work.
Moderate ID did not shield them from the misleading motions.
How this fits with other research
Poloczek et al. (2016) showed that teens with mild ID use verbal rehearsal tricks that fit their mental age.
L et al. extend that line: teens with moderate ID are also memory-active, but the active memory can be hijacked by silent hand cues.
Grainger et al. (2017) found that children with ASD keep planned-action memories intact.
L et al. add that having IDD, not ASD, is the risk factor for gesture-based memory distortion.
Together the pair warns us: good memory skills do not equal immunity to social cues.
Why it matters
When you interview a student or probe for an incident, keep your hands still or use neutral motions.
Record the session on video so any later legal team can see what cues you gave.
Teach self-advocates to say "I don’t know" when an adult’s hands seem to answer for them.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: In 2016, global records documented around 1 billion child abuse cases, with higher rates among children with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD), and most recorded offenses not proceeding to court. Accurate eyewitness testimony is vital for the justice system. Yet, while children with IDD are known to be influenced by verbal misinformation, the effect of gestures on their testimony is still unknown. AIMS: The present study assessed the extent to which gesture can mislead children with IDD, alongside comparisons to prior research in typically developing (TD) children. METHOD: A sample of children with moderate IDD aged 11-16 years (n = 21, M=12.95 years) were recruited from a UK school, and compared to TD 5-6-year-olds (n = 31, M=5.77 years) and 7-8-year-olds (n = 32, M=7.66 years) from previous published research. After watching a video participants underwent an interview containing 12 questions, some of which contained suggestive gestures. OUTCOMES AND IMPLICATIONS: Results demonstrated that in children with IDD, gesture observation significantly influenced responses given, with 18 of 21 children being misled at least once. Comparisons to TD children indicated no difference in suggestibility. This study is the first to examine how leading gestural information affects children with IDD, broadening previous research to a more representative sample for the justice system. Discussion centres on implications for police interview guidelines.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2024 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2024.104828